This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession is a nonfiction work by Daniel J. Levitin that focuses on the science behind music and how our brain functions to both understand and enjoy it. As Levitin puts it, the book drives a neuropsychological perspective on how music affects our brain, our mind, our thoughts and our spirit.
In the beginning, Levitin analyzes the elements of different sounds and educates the reader on the basics of music theory; it’s somewhat difficult to understand for a beginner yet, at the same time, an expert might find it a bit tedious. However, it’s necessary information for the analyses that Levitin presents later in the book.
In different chapters, the author addresses why it is possible to enjoy different artists ranging from Mozart and Bob Dylan to Ludacris. He also explains the reasoning behind how we can like the same song even when we hear different versions. To put it simply, even if a tune is played slower or faster than the original, or played in a different key, our brains are able to recognize the tune because the melody and rhythm remain the same. The bottom line is that perception of musical form is active in the left frontal lobe of the brain where most of the time intellectual perception is active; this could be the reason we are able to recognize that original tune (and still enjoy it).
Levitin delves into how the perception of music activates various areas in the brain, including the region that affects emotion. He also explains why someone could hear a piece of music twenty years ago and still recognize and enjoy it today.
Towards the end, the author discusses what the ultimate purpose of music may be and what approaches different scholars have taken to answer that question. For example, one argument states that musical ability is sexual selection; men and women play music to impress each other and that’s why love songs dominate the music world. An important thing to remember is that music and memory go hand in hand with each other and if that is the case, then music must have some form of purpose.
To give a little history on the author, Levitin was and is a professional musician, sound engineer, and record producer. He wasn’t satisfied with simply enjoying music because he needed to understand the creation of music and more importantly, sound itself. Founder of the Levitin Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Levitin is also a neuroscientist and professor of psychology at McGill University. He believes and teaches that music has an impact on humans emotionally, intellectually, and sometimes even spiritually.
So… would I recommend this book?
Absolutely. If you are a musician, psychologist, music fan (aren’t we all?) or just simply curious, you will love the questions, discussions and conclusions that this book delivers. If you have a basic grasp of science and can get past the complexities of music theory, you’ll have no problem reading and enjoying it.
